Betsy began to assume that they would be based in Philadelphia for the next four months. She looked up schools, and Helen suggested their neighborhood Quaker school. She looked to rent a smaller home in a quiet neighborhood large enough to accommodate both families, and found one. David decided to head off for Westfield and initiate a search for a replacement. He had come in to Helen and laid his cards on the table. He wanted to have Helen adopt his child. He would like to be with Helen or near Helen, it didn’t matter, as long as he could be near the little girl as much as he could.
At the end of the week, they all moved to the other house, which was just a little smaller, but had a little fenced-in backyard. School was starting the next Monday, and Carol was resigned to going to a new school.
Helen took Elly to the local branch of Penn State, and she registered, and Helen paid the fees.
There was a line behind them of the varied types who enjoyed the bounty of Pennsylvania’s state higher education system. Helen gently herded Elly out, noticing curious glances in their direction. (Helen still looked familiar from certain angles.)
“That’s it?”
“What do you mean?”
“No applying for admission, yadda, yadda?”
Helen grinned. “Hoping to be rejected, were we?”
Elly looked startled for a fraction of a second, and then grinned. “Oh you kidder, you!”
“It’s really happening!” Helen said with wonder a short time later, as Helen, Amy, Elly, Betsy and the kids sat visiting with Sita and Lalitha. “We’ve got the schools all lined up …”
“For all the kids …” said Elly, with a wry smile.
“… yes, indeed; for all the kids …”
“My school sounds really different. At least it’s a nicer building.”
Carol always seemed to speak in code; you had to know what she was thinking. At least Helen understood about the school having a nicer building; the Friend’s School had a lovely old building, far more attractive to the romantic heart of young Carol than the warehouse-like home of Westfield Middle School, which must have been built in a fit of pique by the School Board.
“Gena loved it,” Helen said. “She loved the kids there.” Carol merely shrugged, reserving judgment.
“I won’t know anybody,” remarked Allie, whom Helen had neglected rather badly this holiday. She was working a tapestry from a kit someone had given her, and showed an interesting ability to sew and talk at the same time.
“Well, they’ll like you,” Helen said with confidence. It was impossible not to like the little five-year old, who did not seem to have a single flaw in her character.
“You’ll know little Gracie,” Sita pointed out. “She’s looking forward to going to school with you!”
Allie just smiled shyly and nodded. She had beautiful manners that came from the heart, out of a innate desire to make life pleasant for everyone. It was a trait she shared with all the Nordstrom kids, even James, who was just a tad more egocentric than the others.
Life in Philadelphia
Slowly, life in Philadelphia began to take its pattern. First, Elly learned to use the transit system, and find her way to and from school. Initially she grumbled a little. She didn’t like the kids, she didn’t like the courses, and most of all she didn’t like the trip to school and back. She didn’t whine, but when Helen—or anybody—asked her, she was prompt, precise and articulate.
At first Helen agreed with her, and quietly explained the different philosophy of such schools. “They’re principally for people who have been left behind, see, people who had to work right out of high school, or women who married early, and so on. Even people who get laid off their jobs, and need to qualify for a different kind of job. The whole …”
“And people who get thrown out of school. Right?”
Helen looked at her sharply, but then smiled. “Not primarily! Anyway, probably the one common denominator that I think I have noticed in so-called non-traditional students is that …”
“They’re dumb!”
Helen put her arm around Elly and smiled and said very gently, “Listen, sweetheart! Being able to put yourself inside the skin of other people; it’s a wonderful thing to learn! Please bear with me. I’ll make this short!”
“Okay,” said Elly in a low voice, looking fixedly in front of her. Helen studied her, somewhat taken aback.
“What was I saying … oh. No, they’re not stupid; it’s more subtle than that. Many of them have had great responsibility, lots of experience, done many things that you couldn’t do if you were dumb. It’s that … they want to be told what to think. They’re ready to learn information, not thought-patterns. The idea of learning new thought-patterns comes easily to younger students. To older, more experienced students, life has taught them that there’s right, and then there’s wrong. That’s what’s kept them alive and safe: doing the right thing. Trying to think how a Roman would think, or Mozart would think is very, very hard!”
“Uh huh,” said Elly. “Well, as I see it, that’s a kind of dumbness, too!”
“Oh, I don’t know. I had several older students, and it was getting pretty bad. The younger kids thought I would have to go at the pace of the older folks, and the older folks thought I was crazy. It was grinding to a standstill, until somehow a rivalry cropped up between the smartest kid in the class, and the oldest student, a little old lady.”
“Huh.”
“I just accidentally showed each set what the other set was doing!”
“Slimy!”
Helen laughed. “They needed that. The interaction made it happen. It’s true in every class I’ve taught; there’s always one or two kids who make the others believe that it can be done!”
“Aunt Helen, this shit is so freaking easy, it isn’t worth doing. I did harder things at Ferguson. I swear; we did this stuff in seventh grade! These people are morons!”
Helen smiled. “So you think you’re going to be the top of the class?”
“In English class, sure! Heh heh! Aunt Helen, you haven’t been in that class! It’s a total joke!”
Helen was disappointed and angry, but she smiled. “Hang in there, Elly. Don’t make it look too easy!”
The grin faded from Elly’s face. “You don’t believe me!”
“Don’t get mad, Elly, I’m only guessing. You have to believe I’ll be only too happy if you have an easy semester and great grades—don’t you?”
Elly shook her head. “I don’t know, Aunt Helen. I don’t know whose side you’re on, sometimes. I used to think you’d always take my side, no matter what happened! But I guess you’re too canny for that. I have some growing up to do. I thought I was smart, but I’m obviously not smart enough to argue with you!”
“Elly,” said Helen in a reasonable voice, “I’m trying to do something very different from what you’re thinking! Heaven knows I could use a little ego boost, but you must believe I’m not going to do it at the cost of humiliating you! No, I’m trying to give you a little insight into the mind-set of your classmates, so that you can respect them.”
Elly smiled sardonically. She only shook her head.
Helen sighed.
“Will you do me a favor?”
Elly shrugged.
“I feel … almost exiled from the academic world, sweetheart. I would love it if you would share a little of what goes on in your classes with me. Just so I can feel mentally alive. And I’m sure it’ll be beneficial to you, too, to have someone to talk to.”
“Yeah, okay. I have to go. Homework, you know.”
“Okay.”
Elly slouched away not looking back. But once she got into the dark of the living room, she looked through the intervening space to spy on her aunt. Helen was a demoralized figure, holding her head in her hands. Helen’s thought that she was in exile resonated strongly with Elly. The words had rung true: Helen was in exile, just as she, Elly was. It was a horrible, horrible feeling, and for once Elly was taken out of herself, into Helen’s mind, with an appreciation of Helen’s idea of getting inside someone else’s head.
For years, Elly had imagined that being Helen was pretty much the same as being Elly, except taller, older, more talented, and in a different situation. Tonight, she had begun to wonder at the thoughts and hopes that motivated Helen, as things she might not understand fully, but which she could appreciate to a degree. But the thought that Helen considered the motivations of Elly’s humble fellow-students of interest; that was a revelation. However much Elly pretended to scorn Helen’s words, Helen was still very high in Elly’s esteem. It all began to come together in Elly’s head —perhaps not consciously— that taking her fellow-students seriously was important. It was a very thoughtful Elly that moved away from the service-port.
The following week, Carol, Betsy’s younger daughter, began school with Allie. James went to pre-school. All three children found their classes much more diverse than they had been in Westfield. Carol was full of her interesting classmates, some of whom were as interested in ballet as she was, and told her all about the best places to get ballet lessons. Allie was equally excited, and told Amy in detail about the friends she had made, and how Gracie had introduced her to her friends.
James was the most matter-of-fact about his experience. “Yeah,” he said, “I had a good time.”
“Met a lot of kids?”
“Well, yeah. Lots of kids.”
“What kinds of kids? Indian, Black, Chinese, Arab, what?”
“I don’t know,” he said heavily, as though it hurt to think about it. “All sorts, you know. There’s a kid from … Ingen … Ingines … sump’n like that, …”
“Indonesia?”
“Uh huh. Ingenisia. Nice kid.”
It was all Helen could do to keep from hooting with laughter. This new cool James was just too much!
In spite of her tendency to interfere in some of Helen’s activities, Helen loved Ruth dearly. Every day, their bond grew stronger. Elly often found the two of them having a serious discussion when she came home from college. She was the first home, usually, since the others went home with Gracie and had tea with the little girl’s family first, before coming home. Elly arrived around four thirty on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and that’s when Helen was usually talking to little Ruth. The little girl even slept with her some nights.
Amy suddenly decided to visit Westfield. She told Helen she was going, and simply left one day.
“Where’s she going?” Ruthie asked, as soon as Amy had been picked up by the taxi. She hadn’t even asked to be taken out by Jim, but insisted on taking a bus. (Jim was on Helen's payroll, her transportation manager.) Helen had never taken the bus, and was afraid it would take all of a day. Amy wasn’t angry, she had said, just impatient. Doing nothing in Philadelphia was dull.
“She’s going to Westfield. That’s where Daddy is!”
“Oh. Amy talk to Daddy?”
“Sure. Does Ruth want to talk to Daddy? Yes?”
“Uh huh. Telephone!”
“Right now? You’re ready? Talk to Daddy with the telephone?”
“Telephone!”
Helen dialed. She felt rather excited and a little shy as she waited for an answer.
“Hello, Westfield Veterinary Hospital, how may I help you?”
“Er, Lisa?”
“Yes, who is this please?”
“It’s Helen. Helen Nordstrom!”
“Oh, hi! Well, Doc went home early! He’s … well, I don’t know. You should check on him, Miss Helen.”
At least she was talking to her, Helen thought. She had half expected to be no longer on speaking terms with anybody.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh … this and that, you know. He … I think he’s depressed. He leaves early every day, and comes in late.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Well, you see, we got a new doctor, right? And he’s a total asshole. Never goes out of the office, gets me or Dr Powers to do everything. I don’t know why he bothered to apply, because there ain’t no way he’s gonna get a second year!”
“Gosh. So David might as well be working alone, huh?”
“Yes! All he does is give the occasional pill or injection, that’s all. Mostly just injections. Pills are too much work, I guess.” Just as Helen was beginning to feel like a heel for encouraging David to move to Philadelphia, Lisa asked, “When you coming back, Miss Helen? Dr David might stay if you come back. I think he misses you and the little girl something awful. I read in the papers about that accident! You okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine, Lisa,” Helen said quickly. “What did the papers say?”
“We heard you was lucky to be alive! Is that true? They do tend to go overboard around here with their stories, like if you caught a cold they’d say you was dying. So ignorant!”
“No, it was bad. The Cherokee was totaled.”
“Jeeze!”
I had to have all sorts of stitches. It was exciting!”
“Oh, be careful, Miss Helen; if anything was to happen to you, Dr David and the little girl will go crazy. How many stitches?”
“Oh …” Helen didn’t know. All she knew was that there were lots. “I don’t exactly know; around fifteen, maybe twenty?”
“Holy Jesus! On the nose, the head? Where?”
“On my cheek, a cut through the eye, on my scalp, … all over!”
“Good god! The baby … we heard you …”
“Uh huh. Well—there’ll be another time,” Helen said. She began noticing all the little aches and pains that she had gotten accustomed to over the last week or two. The greatest ache of all was in her womb, for this child she had so looked forward to seeing—to meeting— at last!
“That is so hard. I can’t imagine what it must feel like!”
“It’s all past, Lisa; I’m over it now.”
“You can’t possibly be! I can tell from your voice!”
Helen sighed silently.
“Miss Helen, where’s the dog? Is she out there in Philly with you?”
Helen remembered the dogs with a start. Anne was looking after them, supposedly.
“No, they’re right there in the house. Damn, I should check on them …”
“Tell Dr David to check on her; it’ll be good therapy for ’im. Oh Miss Helen, he’s in a bad way. Oh, here I am, pestering you, when you’ve got your own troubles!”
“I think I will ask him,” Helen said, smiling. That was Lisa all over. She was a soft-hearted girl who doted on David, but had a long-standing relationship with her young man which was not about to break up any time soon. She had her man trained, and wasn’t going to give him up.
“Hello?” The voice sounded a little dull for late afternoon.
“David?”
“Oh, hi!” Helen could hear him making noises, and imagined him getting comfortable. “I should have called, huh.”
“There’s somebody who wants to talk to you!”
“Who?”
“Hullo!”
“Hello, darling! How is my little girl?”
“I’m fine!” Ruth’s eyes lit up as she chattered to her father about Amy being on the bus, and she would be talking to him soon.
“Amy? What did you say, Ruth? Where has she gone?”
“She’s coming home! She’s coming see you, daddy.” Helen caught her breath; Ruth was putting on an innocent interpretation on Amy’s trip that might be difficult to resolve tactfully.
David asked to talk to Helen, and Ruth reluctantly gave the phone to her, looking a little cheated.
“What’s this about Amy?”
“She wanted to get back to Westfield; I think she’s just generally upset, and she hates having me in the house all day.”
David groaned.
“I talked to Lisa,” Helen continued, “and she told me about the new fellow.”
“Yeah, what can I say. Some people …”
“Don’t drink too much, David. I would help you if I could see my way through all this!”
“Just hang on, Sweetheart … I’ll come back as soon as I can get away. I’ll have to advertize again. Oh god, it’ll be a mess. I should just give him his walking papers.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“I … I’m too upset.” Helen felt his weariness in her own bones. Everything was going wrong.
“How are you eating?”
“Oh … spaghetti, you know; same old.”
“Maybe you and Amy can fix yourselves up a nice meal together!”
“When is she getting here? The one bus gets here around 11:30, and the other gets here around 8:00 at night.”
“She left in the morning, around 10, so …”
“That’s the 8:00 bus, then. It goes all over; Beaver Falls, Grove City, …”
“That’s the one!”
“I’ll pick her up.”
“She only brought one small bag.”
“It’s just … the thought of being met, I guess.”
“And check on the dogs, David, Anne is supposed to be looking after them.”
“Yes, I checked already. I met Anne; they’ve done a good job.”
They talked a little more, and Helen gave the little girl another few minutes, and after some sad goodbyes, they hung up.
Amy had set out with a lot of spirit, having finally decided to do something about the frustration that had weighed her down for weeks. She had expected many things, none of which had materialized. At first she had expected that Helen would quickly decide between David and Maryssa. She had no idea which one she would choose, though she had hoped that the little girl Ruth would win. Though Helen thought of herself as a slave to sex, Amy had come to believe that a stronger force had come among them, namely little Ruth. She had hoped that while she was away in France, Helen would have come to an understanding with the poor widower. It was almost the only outcome Amy could stomach.
The accident had shaken her utterly. It was days before she understood the sequence of events that had led to it; none of those in the house knew, or if they knew, were in a fit state to explain. Amy had returned as soon as she could, all her angry thoughts about Helen forgotten. It had been heartbreaking to see the woman all bandaged up, and something like fear had touched Amy’s heart. Helen had become a refuge for her, someone who was invulnerable, someone who would look after Amy, though for years it had been Amy that Helen ran to in illness or in a crisis. The sight of the photographs of Helen's crushed face had not helped.
Then Helen had gone off to the Brooks mansion, and Amy had had to keep things going at the house. Janet had been wonderful, as always, but now rather absent-minded. Tommy, Helen’s strange half-sibling, was remote and detached, but she kept track of Helen’s progress in the hospital, took messages, and kept little Ruth entertained. Elly was shocked and upset, but helped as she could.
It had been David who had helped keep the house going, shopping, cooking, calming them down, being a solid presence. Amy often gazed at him when he wasn’t looking, full of sympathy for him, disgusted with Helen for not accepting him long ago, and being done with it.
As the bus wound it’s meandering way through the hills of Pennsylvania —who knew there were so many blasted hills?— Amy grew impatient, hungry, and as the sun began to set, which it did very early, Amy’s mood began to sink with it. The house would be cold when she got there. She would have to walk from the bus station, unless she called Jim up, and she associated Jim with Helen —even though Jim had been nothing but kindness itself to Amy, comforting her when she and Helen had had one of their frequent falling-outs. Her stomach was yelling for food, but the last time she had tried to get a bite, the bus had almost left without her. It was very dark, now, and the bus’s headlights cut a tunnel of light through the woods through which they were going. Several times a deer stepped onto the road in front of the bus, and the driver merely swore at it, and slowed down. The deer walked off, and they continued. Damn that stupid Helen! God, she was so dumb, to let a deer send her off the road.
“Westfield coming up, folks. We’re right on time.” Her fellow-travelers, all six or seven of them, had been calling ahead to be met. Amy was the only one who wasn’t being met. The gloom she felt was awful.
Westfield looked so unfamiliar from this approach; they seemed to have circled round and come into the town from a direction Amy had never suspected to exist. There was a small gathering of cars and people.
The door opened, and there was a blast of wintery weather blown into the bus. Amy was the last to get up, and the last out of the bus.
Suddenly, a tall friendly shape lumbered over.
“Hi, Amy!”
“David!” Amy grinned her pleasure. She forgot the entire journey she had been hugging to herself, planning to feed her misery with it for days. She put her arms around David, only caring that there was someone there to meet her. David returned her hug, patting her back. Words were not needed.
The driver was waiting for them so Amy could get her bag. David picked it up, and in no time they were in the Toyota, which started up with a slight hiccup, and they were rolling smoothly along, warm as toast.
“How did you know I was on the bus? Helen, huh?”
“And Ruth! They called around three.”
Amy sighed. “I don’t know how you stand her, David …” Amy smiled to soften her words. “… she’s impossible!”
“Oh dear! What’s she done this time?”
“Nothing, … just been her usual self-centered self, I guess!”
“Lounging around, leaving all the work for you, I bet!”
“She’s working, I’ve got to grant her that. She’s up early every day, at around five, and gets breakfast for the children. But Elly helps a lot.”
“Uh huh,” David said, encouragingly, smiling in the dark.
“Then she gets them ready. Actually, she has them all help each other, even that crazy Carol.”
“She is a strange child! But she seems to be more relaxed, now. She was strung a bit tight.”
“Oh man, was she ever.”
There was a long silence. They had got to a more familiar part of town, and were headed towards the farm. The town was still decorated up for the holiday season, as if it was waiting for Helen to come and admire it. The whole world loved and hated Helen, and Amy was getting heartily sick of it. From a distance, in Ohio, Amy had been able to deal with it fairly philosophically. But being right in the middle of it had been a nightmare. It would have been fine if they were still a team, Amy realized.
Amy had been quiet, thinking. At last she said, “She takes good care of Ruth, though. They’re always playing, or talking.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen ’em.” David scratched his beard. “I’m surprised how domestic she is. Like a big old country girl. I guess you can take the girl out of the farm, huh?”
Amy chuckled. She wasn’t ready to feel good about Helen just yet.
“Why did you decide to come back early?” asked David quietly.
“I don’t know,” said Amy, honestly. “I’m all … at odds, in Philadelphia. I’m a fifth wheel.”
David sighed gustily.
The farm came into sight. The dogs were out, and six pairs of eyes looked at the car silently.
“Hey, aren’t they supposed to bark?”
David grinned in the dark. “I guess they know the Toyota’s sound,” he said. “It’s kind of distinctive.”
They drove in, and Amy saw that the snow had been driven over on the exact same places a number of times. It was nearly a foot deep. The dogs had worn down a clear patch near the little dog-door to their house.
Some minutes later, David was helping to put away the supplies he’d bought for Amy, while she cooked up some spaghetti for them both. They ate, and Amy invited him to stay to watch the movie that was showing on TV. When that was over, she asked him if he’d help her get her car started in the morning.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be here at seven, that all right?”
“Perfect!”
“Thanks for everything, Amy. Good to have you back!”
Amy grinned and held out her arms for a hug. David hugged her. She felt good, and smelled nice. It didn’t seem quite so lonely any more. Amy was a lot of fun. A lot more fun without Helen around to annoy her.
“Miss that girl of yours, don’t you!” she said, letting him go.
His smile faded, and he nodded. That was that. There was no more to be said.
He made one last round outside the house, followed cautiously and silently by the dogs, gave the mother one last affectionate scratch on the shoulders, and drove home.
Amy watched him drive off through the front windows, and was surprised at the fact that she no longer felt lonely. In fact, she felt excited and happy, but exhausted. She took a long hot shower, and went to bed.
Towards the end of February, Amy wrote Helen a long letter, confessing that she and David were in the process of falling in love.
“Darling, thinking back, I have to admit that, without my conscious mind knowing it, I wanted to find David, and see how he felt about me. It happened slowly, but it was like a glacier, impossible to stop.
“He was very clear about this. He loves us both. Having known you for so long, I can believe that there are others who are like you, in love with a dozen people all at once, and that some of them must be men. If you had come back, instead of me, he would have fallen for you all over again. But he felt you pushing him away, and this is what happened.
“Still, it is lonesome, with just the two of us. Is there any way you can share the children with us? I miss Allie and James desperately, and David misses Ruth. He misses our little ones, too. I realize that you don’t owe me anything. But maybe you can find it in your heart to do it for old time’s sake. Any or all of them! Please think about it.
“Now, away from the frustration of watching you suffer, and the constant irritation of your affair with Maryssa, I know I will love you always. The possibility of not loving you any more was the worst fear that hung over me. Now I know that won’t happen. You have given me some of the happiest moments of my life. God didn’t mean us to be a couple; we were intended to be like this, a place to which the other could go when things go wrong.
“The dogs are waiting for you. Every time a Cherokee goes by, the big female pricks up her ears! They’re content with David and me, but she’s given her heart to you, and will pine until you get back.
“I just know that you will forgive me and David for what we have done. We’re happy now, but who knows about the future? Write or call, I want to hear from you. I love you,
Amy.”Helen handed the letter to Betsy with a sad smile. But she felt a joy that made her want to sing. Amy’s unhappiness had been a burden, and so had David’s misery. This was far, far better than she could ever have hoped for. Amy had tactfully avoided mentioning the obvious: that she was now free to declare her love for Maryssa, and to move in with her.
Life went on for several weeks. Helen replied to Amy and David as warmly and as gently as she could. She expressed her pleasure in their happiness, and her hope that their love would last. She said she couldn’t bear to part with the children, any one of them.
Amy, you know how beautifully little Ruth has blended into the family; she’s adopted James, Allie and Carol, and has sort of forged us into her own little family. Perhaps it is our daily routine that makes it so. Come the summer, things could be different.
You could definitely look forward to having some or all of the children over the Summer, including Gena, Erin, and Krissy! I don’t know what will happen to me; I live one day at a time—or one week, when things are going really well—and I’m afraid to imagine what the future will bring.
Maryssa and I have found a good place for us. We’re in love, but for the moment it’s a kind of sexless thing. We spend a lot of time together, me watching her and being in seventh heaven, her puttering around, just happy to be near me, I guess. I haven’t had sex with anyone since the accident. But once that dam is broken, I don’t know what will happen. I’m afraid that sex may kill what I feel for Maryssa, and what she feels for me.
I know I should come visit the dogs, but I have to confess that I’m too embarrassed to face you both. I’m afraid that I’ll do or say something unbelievably stupid, and hurt your feelings! But I simply have to come, I know. I’ll work on it.
Everyone sends their love. (Anyway, I’ll make them, shortly!) Love to both of you,
Helen.Elly gave up any pretense that her courses were a joke. She was working furiously, not merely to get an A, but to be the top of the class. There was a new pride in her, and Helen wrote a cautious note to Jan, telling her that things were looking good.
Suddenly, it was spring break time. And Gena decided to spend it with Krissy, the girl whom she had met over the Summer, and who had become her best friend over the Fall. Meanwhile Tommy decided to spend Spring Break in Philadelphia.
[K]
No comments:
Post a Comment